


The Brave

by jakia



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Magic, Memory Loss, even in a universe where she doesn't remember anything nott loves caleb a lot, nott is now an 8 year old child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-06-08 10:30:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15241443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jakia/pseuds/jakia
Summary: Nott Widogast does not remember anything about her life before she was 9 years old. A story that explores the endgame where True Polymorph is cast on Nott, but something goes wrong, and she no longer remembers her past. Gen, memory loss, and found family tropes ahoy.





	The Brave

**Author's Note:**

> So, the True Polymorph spell description says that “all of the stats are changed to that of the new creature, but the creature retains its alignment and personality.” It says nothing about memories, and also I’m a terrible human being. Enjoy.

Her first memory involves waking up in a bed with a young man standing over her, his hand on her forehead. “ _ Kleine schwester _ , how do you feel?”

 

She doesn’t recognize some of the words he says, but they are said with affection, and she  _ knows  _ him, knows his red hair and scarred hands, even if she cannot explain why. “Thirsty.” She says, voice raspy but familiar to her own ears. The gentleman brings her a glass of water and she drinks it slowly, and the next time she speaks her voice sounds smoother than she thinks it ever has. “Thank you.”

 

The young man’s smile is warm and familiar, although she isn’t sure why. “You took a nasty fall there,  _ schwester. _ I’m glad you are feeling better.”

 

The man is leaning over her again, his hand against one of hers, squeezing gently. She returns the warm smile, and brushes her-- _ hair? _ (red, the same ginger color as the gentleman--why does she feel like it should be  _ black _ \--) out of her face. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” she says quietly, squeezing the man’s hand back. ( _ protect protect I must protect him) _ “but I have no idea who you are.”

 

The man freezes immediately. “You don’t know me?”

 

She shakes her head.

 

“You don’t--do you know my--what about--do you know  _ you? _ What is  _ your  _ name, little one?”

 

She opens her mouth, ready to give the answer, but finds there isn’t one to give. “I don’t know.” 

 

“You don’t--? What’s the last thing you remember?” There is a cat curled up next to her that she didn’t realize was there before, and it moves to her stomach so she can scratch it better. “ _ Do _ you remember anything?”

 

She shakes her head _no_ , and pets the kitty cat, making sure to scratch behind the ears really well. 

 

The man jumps up and heads for the door, opening it up quickly. “Get Molly and Jester, please, something went wrong--” and then his head is buried in a book, and then another book, and he keeps pulling so many books out of that backpack that she wonders how they all managed to fit. 

 

The cat purrs. She looks around the room. There’s a broken piece of a porcelain doll face with ribbons tied to the ends of it, sitting on the end table, but it’s the only part of the room besides the man and the cat that seem at all familiar to her. There’s a mirror, too, and if she cranes her head just right--

 

She does not recognize the girl in the mirror. The girl in the mirror is a small humanoid with red curly hair and bright green eyes and freckles on her nose. It's a little girl, a child, based on the smallness. There are bandages wrapped her hands and part of her neck, like they might’ve covered her face at one point. An injured child.

 

She scratches the cat again, and looks as the mirror does the same thing.  _ Oh _ , she thinks.  _ That’s me.  _ She didn't recognize the reflection. 

 

She doesn’t get much time to think on that, for soon there are people in the room--an overwhelming amount--and they are all different colors, so bright and vibrant and one of them is a bird? And they are all  _ talking,  _ all at once, asking her questions and looking at her with concerned worry. It’s nice that they care, she thinks, but she can’t hardly respond over all the noise they are making, and it’s hard to focus on any one particular person at once. It’s--overwhelming.

 

It must show on her face, because finally, the red haired man from before speaks, his voice louder than anyone else’s. “If you are not  _ Jester  _ and  _ Mollymauk _ , get out please.” The stampede looks ready to protest, but a one big woman with dark hair that’s white on the ends starts pushing people out, and the bird squawks “I am very sweet!” before leaving as well. She goes to get up out of the bed, pushing the cat off of her lap, but the young man stops her with a firm hand on her shoulder. “Not you, little one.”

 

Finally, there’s just two people with horns there, and the red-haired man. One of the horned folks is blue and immediately sits beside her, casting white energy over her body and making her feel better at once. The other--the purple one--speaks in hushed whispers to the red haired man.

 

“You must be so scared,” the blue one says finally, pulling her attention away from the two talking gentlemen. The woman has a kind smile, and it immediately puts her at ease. “I know I would be scared if I woke up and didn’t know who I was.”

 

“I’m not scared,” she says, and surprises both herself and the blue woman with how honest she is.

 

It causes the blue woman to smile brightly. “Well, you’ve always been the bravest of us,” she kisses her on the forehead before turning her attention to the two gentlemen. “My name is Jester. Do you remember your name?”

 

She shakes her head _no_ , and feels a wave of holy energy pass through her. Jester frowns. “Caleb, I cannot cure this.”

 

The red haired man’s face falls immediately ( _ Caleb _ , she called him, and it _sounds_ right, why didn't she know that earlier?) and he walks back over towards her. “That cannot be right, Jester, there must be  _ some spell _ \--”

 

“I cannot cure what isn’t there. There is nothing wrong with her, Caleb!”

 

And then the purple man shoves between the two of them, and kneels by her bed. “Let me try something. Memory loss is something I have a little experience with, after all.”

 

The next few hours are spent with the purple one ( _ Mollymauk Tealeaf _ , he introduces himself,  _ though my friends call me Molly, and I’d like for us to be friends, no? _ ) in quiet meditation, sitting criss-crossed on the bed across from one another as he tries this and that, some herbs and some blood magic. When that doesn’t work, there are gentle, guided questions that she surprises herself by knowing the answers to, and she becomes frustrated by the ones she doesn’t know the answers to. While this happens, Caleb and Jester sit in the corner and argue in hushed whispers over books, pulling more and more out, trading them with one another until they have an entire library’s worth of books that they pulled out of a simple hammersack. 

 

At one point, a green-skinned gentleman from before brings them a simple dinner--rice and meat and bread, which she scarfs down with alarming intensity. The green man laughs, and before he can talk himself out of it, leans down and kisses her on the forehead before he leaves. 

 

“He’s nice,” she tells Mollymauk, and he smiles at her, taking a bite of his own bread.

 

“He is very nice,” Mollymauk tells her. “I don’t suppose you remember the name Fjord, either?”

 

She doesn’t. She wishes she did--they are all so kind to her, and for some reason she can’t explain, she thinks that maybe people weren’t always so nice to her, before. 

 

She shakes her head, and Mollymauk frowns. “Damn. Ah well, we’ll keep trying.”

 

Another hour or so of questions after dinner, and she makes the mistake of yawning. Caleb, Jester, and Mollymauk insist on stopping for the night. They show her to the bathroom and show her her toothbrush and bring her a change of clothes that must be hers, they fit her  _ perfectly _ , and then take turns tucking her into bed. Mollymauk goes first--gives her a big ol’ kiss on the forehead with a loud  _ smack _ and ruffles her hair, making her giggle a bit before he leaves, wishing her a good night and sweet dreams. 

 

“Do you want me to stay with you tonight?” Caleb offers, sitting on one side of her bed while Jester stands beside him, wedged between him and the nightstand. The gesture is kind, but she shakes her head no anyway.

 

“Or me? Would you rather stay with me instead tonight, sweetie?” Jester offers, too, with a worried glance Caleb’s direction. “You don’t have to stay with a stinky man you don’t know if you don’t want to.”

 

_ “Jester _ \--”

 

She laughs. “I’m fine. I’ll be okay by myself.” The cat, whose name she’s learned is Frumpkin, purrs and burrows against her elbow. “Can the kitty stay with me?”

 

Caleb’s gaze softens as he pets the cat as well. “Of course he can.” 

 

Jester leans forward and tucks her in, kisses her on the cheek, and rubs her forehead against hers. “Well, if you change your mind, my room is just down the hall a bit. First door on the left.  You know left from right?”

 

She rolls her eyes. “ _ Yes. _ ”

 

“Okay good! I just wanted to make sure!”

 

“ _ Jester _ \--”

 

“Okay,” Jester laughs, and kisses her again. “Sleep well, sweetie.”

 

And then it’s just her and Caleb, alone in the room together. He’s been crying, she realizes now, looking at his face, and it hurts her heart to see it, to know that she’s caused him pain somehow. She lifts her hand up to his cheek and brushes away some of the tear stains, and he smiles at her.

 

“Ah,  _ schwester,  _ you don’t even remember me and you are still trying to take care of me, even when it’s my job to take care of you. I’m glad to see you haven’t changed, really.” He holds her hand with his pressed up against his cheek, and it gets quiet again, just the two of them.

 

“What does  _ schwester  _ mean?” She asks him, curious when he lets go of her hand. “Is that my name?” She doesn’t think that it is--it doesn’t  _ sound _ like a name, but it’s the only thing anyone’s called her, and well, what does she know?

 

“No, it’s not your name. It’s, ah--” he blushes a bit in the lowlight. “It means  _ sister. _ ”

 

Oh. She’s his  _ sister _ . She wondered--but of course, they have the same red hair, although the eyes are a bit different. She almost wondered if he wasn’t her father, given how much older he was than her, but that didn’t sound right, either.  _ Brother  _ sounds right.

 

“ _ Sister _ ,” she repeats, and smiles at him warmly. “Schwester. I like it.”

 

“I do too,” he smiles, and kisses her one last time on the forehead. “Sleep well, little one. If you need me, my room is just through that door on the right. We’ll try and figure this out again in the morning.”

 

* * *

 

She dreams of goblins. 

 

They’re scary, with sharp pointed teeth and wide mouths, familiar but frightening, and they are going to  _ hurt her _ , she did something  _ bad,  _ she let the man go but she had to, she couldn’t just let them keep hurting him, so she got to  _ run _ , and when she wakes up she feels like she’s been running for a very, very long time.

 

It’s still nighttime when she gets out of bed, but she creeps down the hall anyway. She doesn’t want to disturb anyone, but she could use a friendly face, and both Caleb and Jester offered her space…

 

Caleb’s bedroom door is open already, cracked just a bit, and it doesn’t take much from her to silently push it open just a bit more. Jester’s there, too, and they’ve been drinking, it seems. She recognizes the smell, and she recognizes the bottle of nearly empty sweet white wine by Jester’s feet and the platinum flask in Caleb’s hands.

 

She can’t quite hear everything through crack in the door--she would have to open the door more to hear better, and she doesn’t want to disturb them, and so she just stays silent, and listens--

 

“--my fault. It’s all my  _ fucking _ fault. Everything I touch, I ruin.” Caleb takes another swig from the flask. “I wanted to give her a  _ childhood _ . She never got to have a proper one. I never meant to give her this,” he cries, putting his face into his hands over his knees. “I didn’t mean to take her _away_ _. _ ”

 

“You didn’t,” Jester assures him, although her face is still soft and sad. “Caleb, you did exactly what she asked. You could not have known--”

 

“I  _ should  _ have. I should have been a better wizard. I should have studied more, should have--”

 

“You did  _ exactly _ what she asked, Caleb,” Jester soothes, wrapping her arms around Caleb tightly, trying her best to comfort him. “She’s wanted this, for as long as I’ve known her. She would be  _ happy _ \--”

 

“Happy? Happy to what, to  _ not exist anymore? _ ” Caleb hiccups, and pushes Jester away slightly. 

 

The room is quiet for a moment, and she wants nothing more than to run into the room and hug Caleb, but she doesn’t. It’s like she  _ can’t _ , like her little legs are jelly and unable to move anymore. Despite how familiar he seems to her, he's still a stranger, and a drunk one, and she doesn't know how he'll react.

 

“I’ve done so many terrible, terrible things in my life,” Caleb says quietly, finally breaking the silence, and she has to strain a bit to even hear him. “Every time I told her about it, she always forgave me. Always. Unconditionally.” He gets quiet again for a bit, and she hears him sniff. “I don’t know if she would forgive me for this.”

 

She closes the door quietly, leaving the room and tiptoeing down the hallway, her dreams of goblins forgotten. She crawls back into bed, and promises herself to go back to sleep and get a good night’s rest. She will need to try extra hard tomorrow to remember everything. 

 

She doesn’t want to disappoint Caleb.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I may do more, I may not. I kind of like it as is, but I also have ideas for more that could come, so we shall see.


End file.
